1. Chapter 1
The sun had been up for only a few hours, and Isla was already covered in blood.
It had been a busy morning. The carpenter’s apprentice had found himself on the wrong side of an axe, and shortly after she’d finished stitching him up, the Porters’ son had missed a bough on the tree he’d been climbing.
Isla had found the boy beneath the old willow, cradling a decidedly broken arm.
Afterward, she’d made several stops throughout town, delivering herbal remedies to villagers fighting a creeping lung sickness, where the Burtons’ two-year-old promptly threw up on her.
Now, as she pushed open the heavy door to the forge, its brass bell echoed a dull greeting.
Instantly, a familiar warmth settled on her shoulders like a blanket.
A low building of rough-hewn stone, the walls of the forge were darkened by years of soot and smoke, the scent of metal sharp on the air.
Isla had spent most of her life running in and out of this building with Oren hot on her heels while his father barked at them to slow down.
Oren stood behind the counter now, hands splayed wide on the worn wood as he faced a man Isla didn’t recognize.
The man turned slightly, and the tip of a pointed ear parted the dark hair that fell to his shoulders.
Isla frowned. She should have instantly marked him for fae based on his size alone.
He was dressed for battle, steel strapped to his back and hip, a bow and quiver slung over a shoulder.
His haughty expression was pinched as he examined the blade Oren had handed him, as though he smelled something unpleasant.
“I suppose it’ll have to do,” the fae mused. “It’s no Fireborne steel, but I don’t have time to make it back to the border camps before they’ve need of me. The Askeldrath savages have been relentless of late.”
Oren muttered an amiable thanks as gold was exchanged, and the fae took his leave without any thanks of his own.
He brushed roughly past Isla, sending an unnecessary gust of wind whipping through the forge.
It whistled past her ear, tearing strands of hair from its knot and stinging her eyes, sending the steel blades on the walls rattling.
Isla glared at his back as he stepped out of the forge and into the village, smirking.
Oren glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with your face?” he asked dryly. Behind him, metal clinked as the forge breathed a thick heat through the room.
“How do you stand them?” Isla said as she approached the counter.
Oren shrugged. “Assholes come in all shapes and sizes.”
Despite her annoyance, she felt the corner of her mouth tug up in a smirk.
Oren set the blade he’d been examining aside, then crossed his arms. They were corded with muscle and scarred from years of work at the forge under his father’s watchful eye.
His lip curled as he took in the state of her apron.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Thanks,” she deadpanned, but there was something else in his expression. She narrowed her eyes. “What is it?”
He loosed a breath, his jaw tightening. “Cael went home early today. Said he wasn’t feeling great.”
Isla’s smile slipped. Her brother had said the same thing two days ago, and five days before that. Both times he’d been deep in his cups the night before.
She scoffed, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I thought him working here would change anything.”
Wordlessly, Oren covered her hand with his own, his darker skin contrasting against hers.
There was nothing romantic in the gesture.
Born just six months before Isla, the two had grown from muddy children to grimy adults, each bearing the filth of their respective trades.
Him, perpetually covered in ash and sweat, and her with tangled hair and traces of the day's healing staining her clothes. Oren was her oldest and truest friend. It was Oren who had carried her back to her house the day she had fallen from a tree and earned the small, crescent-shaped scar above her left eyebrow, her pride nearly as bruised as her body. And it was Oren who had held her after the news of her parents’ death had come, sobs wracking her body as grief crashed over her like relentless waves.
She glanced down to where his scarred hand now dwarfed her own, halting the motion there. She’d been twisting the ring she wore on the fourth finger of her right hand absentmindedly, an anxious gesture she’d picked up after her mother had gifted her the family heirloom.
Oren looked at her with sympathy. “Cael will figure things out, Isla. Just give him some time.”
She sighed, slid her hand out from beneath Oren’s, and reached into her bag to retrieve a jar of green paste.
“Slather and leave it on for ten minutes at least.”
Oren’s lip curled with distaste as he accepted the salve. “Does it smell as bad as the last one?”
“Yes,” she said. “And you’re welcome.”
He snorted, setting the jar aside. “Why can’t it be made with mint or something?”
“You’re welcome to rub mint all over you if you want, but it won’t do anything for your burns. Besides,” she said, brows knitting, “all the mint I could find in the forest was wilted and dried. It looked well past its harvest time, though that shouldn’t be for months.”
Oren’s own brow furrowed, “The weather’s been off this summer. Did you hear what happened to—”
The bronze bell on the forge door clanged, and Isla followed Oren’s gaze to see Vera, a middle-aged woman with the brown hair and burnished, earth-toned skin of most villagers, standing at the threshold.
“Isla. I thought I might find you here,” she said with a smile, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I wondered if you might have time to stop by today?”
“Of course,” Isla answered immediately, concern drawing her brows together. “Has Neve’s fever worsened?”
“Aye,” Vera nodded, fisting her hands in her skirts. “I’ve been brewing the willowbark tea, as you said, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. There’s probably little reason to worry, but it’s been ten days now, and I just—”
“Twelve days,” Isla corrected as she thumbed through her mental catalogue, eyes sliding out of focus.
“Neve had a similar cough two summers ago, but nothing this persistent. That had lasted only three days, and there’d been no trace of fever, then.
Ten days of cough and two with a progressively worsening fever, despite the willowbark… you’re right to worry.”
Vera shook her head, her eyebrows climbing slightly. “The things I could get done with that memory of yours.”
Isla smiled tightly, but a curl of unease had settled firmly at the base of her spine, her healer’s instincts stirring. She slung her satchel over her shoulder, turning to Vera.
“I have time right now. Lead the way.”
As they walked through the village streets, Isla closed her eyes, breathing in the familiar scents of freshly baked bread and woodsmoke as they carried through the air alongside the quiet murmur of conversation that drifted through open windows.
Trees grew throughout the village, less dense than in the surrounding forests, but still plentiful.
Branches reached for both the sky and each other, as if they leaned on one another for strength.
The warm light of the early afternoon wove through the thick blanket of foliage, casting an iridescent glow over the stone-and-timber cottage roofs and earthen streets.
Ivy climbed the stone walls, cottages crowned with the leafy canopies of the tallest maples and oaks.
Despite being one of the largest villages in Terravern, Rowanmere appeared almost to have sprouted up alongside the trees themselves, entrenched as it was in the surrounding nature.
That was, after all, the Terravernian way — rather than carving the earth into a preferred shape, they grew around it.
They reached Vera’s home, and the woman led Isla through the main room of the house and into a small, back bedroom.
On the bed lay Neve, just shy of fourteen years.
Isla’s eyes narrowed as they flickered over the girl.
Despite her caramel skin, Neve was visibly pale, her brown eyes glassy.
She shivered, clutching a handmade quilt to her chest despite the sweat that beaded on her brow.
She turned, noticing Isla, and rolled her eyes dramatically.
“I can’t believe she made you come,” she said, before a bout of coughing stole her breath. The cough seemed to roll through Neve from her toes to her throat, deep and wet, her face reddening with the effort.
Isla lowered herself to her knees beside the bed, struggling to keep her expression smooth as she lay a comforting hand on the girl’s forearm.
She knew immediately this was not the same cough Neve had suffered with two summers past, the unease she had felt earlier now climbing up the length of her spine.
Finally, the cough subsided, and Neve’s face returned to its former pallor.
“Tell me how things have changed, Neve,” Isla said softly. “I understand your fever has worsened. Any weakness? Swelling?”
Isla forced a fixed, mild expression as she listened to Neve speak, the girl’s voice raw from endless bouts of coughing these past several weeks.
Isla shifted her hand, pressing two fingers to the girl’s wrist, where her pulse raced beneath her skin.
Gently, she touched the back of her hand to Neve’s forehead, and had to fight to stop herself from snatching her hand back — it was like touching an open flame.
Isla noted the tender swellings along the girl’s neck as she searched for blemishes or signs of rash.
Neve’s eyes were steeped in fatigue, dark shadows smudged beneath her eyes.
As she examined the girl, a phantom pressure wound its way around Isla’s chest, as though attempting to squeeze the air from her lungs.
Vera stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. “She’s had the tea, but … perhaps I brewed it wrong?”
“You did nothing wrong,” Isla assured Vera firmly.
She offered Neve what she hoped was a reassuring smile, and rose from the bed.
Standing close to Vera, she murmured quietly, “This isn’t the same illness from two years ago.
It’s… something else. It’s moving too fast. But the tea certainly won’t hurt. In fact, can you brew more?”
Vera nodded and hurried from the room.
“I’ve told her it’s just another lung sickness, but she won’t listen,” Isla turned at the sound of Neve’s voice. “Especially now that she and father are coughing too, I—”
“What?” Isla said, a little more sharply than she’d intended. Her own pulse quickened, though she kept her expression carefully neutral.
Neve’s dry, cracked lips parted as if to respond, when a cough rang down the hallway. The sound hit Isla like a physical blow.
And then she was moving, trailing a hand along the wall as she slipped down the hallway, halting abruptly in the kitchen doorway. Vera stood at the counter, her back to Isla as she stirred the freshly brewed willowbark tea.
“When?” Isla clipped.
Vera did not turn, but Isla noticed the brief pause in her stirring.
“Surely you remember with that memory of yours,” Vera said over her shoulder. Her tone was light and airy. “It’s been about oh… two weeks since the cough began?”
“Not Neve,” Isla said sharply. “You.”
Vera turned then, guilt etched across her features as she bit her lip. “Please. It’s just a little cough. Please focus on Neve. I’ve never seen her so ill.”
Isla bit the inside of her cheek, tamping down on her irritation. “How many days since the coughing began? Fever?”
Vera wrung her hands, shifting her weight from side to side. “Five days. No fever for either of us.”
Isla let out a shaky breath. No fever… yet.
But her relief was short-lived. Her mind raced, calculating the rate of infection, weighing the threat of contagion.
Neve had been sick for twelve days, her parents for five.
About a week ago, Isla had treated a farmer in town for sun scald.
His wife had coughed as she’d puttered around the kitchen.
Not enough for Isla to even mark it as noteworthy, easy to dismiss as a simple clearing of her throat.
But now, she felt a quiet dread sink a claw into the base of her neck.